The Entrepreneur Mind by Kevin Johnson is a collection of Top 100 essential beliefs, characteristics, and habits of elite entrepreneurs. The book covers ideas on strategy, education, people, finance, marketing and sales, leadership and motivation.

In the Entrepreneur Mind pdf, I have compiled the summary of the book including Key Action Items that will help you internalize this book.

Download The Entrepreneur Mind PDF Book Summary and Action Guide below:

 

If you want to delve deep into the book, listen to my podcast interview with the author Kevin Johnson ABOVE ⇑ or read the complete Interview BELOW.

The Entrepreneur Mind Interview with author Kevin Johnson

Mani Vaya: In this episode of 2000 Books, serial entrepreneur, Kevin Johnson talks to us about why it takes the same amount of energy to pursue a small goal as it does to pursue a big goal and why being successful should not be the goal of an ambitious entrepreneur.

Well, hello, hello my ambitious friends and welcome to 2000 books where we bring you the most important actionable ideas from the world’s greatest books for ambitious entrepreneurs books in the field of startups, marketing, sales, productivity management, leadership strategy, self help, and much more. And I’m your host Mani Vaya.

I’m really excited to be talking with Kevin Johnson. Kevin is a serial entrepreneur and president of founder of Johnson media inc, a multimillion dollar marketing agency that serves fortune 100 companies. He’s a software engineer by education and he started his first company when he was in college and hasn’t looked back since. Today we’re talking about is awesome book the Entrepreneur Mind. Kevin, welcome to the show, my man.

Kevin Johnson: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to talk with you.

Mani Vaya: Hey, I’m excited as well, man. It’s a great book. You have the subtitle of the book is 100 essential beliefs, characteristics and habits of elite entrepreneurs. So usually I’ll ask my authors, why should an entrepreneur read your book? But in this case, I don’t think I need to ask that because you’ve answered that already with the title of the book. So let’s talk about your personal story and what led you to writing this book.

Kevin Johnson: Sure. I am not your typical entrepreneurial or, or maybe I am. I will investigate that, but I never envisioned myself being an entrepreneur until, uh, I started my first business, a project actually in high school. A good friend of mine, and I talked briefly about this in the book, uh, attended MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. And uh, when I would go home from college, Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, I would intern at IBM or a subsidiary of IBM called Lotus. In fact, some companies still use that, that’s another story, but I would intern there and we would hang out and we’d actually go to the Athena labs at MIT and work on different projects to see how we could use our computer programming skills to, um, learn number one, but number two, try and make some money at the same time.

Kevin Johnson: So we started, uh, one of the businesses that we started was called jazz icons, literally building a interactive web pages for the outstanding musicians at Berklee College of music in Boston. And so we would work with all types of technologies that we take for granted now, such as php, my sequel, a lot of the different programming languages that are in many ways still use today. And so that’s where I caught the bug, the entrepreneurial bug went back to Atlanta and continue to do different things, try different concepts, try different businesses and ultimately stumbled upon an idea that, that really worked out well. And I created a platform for college students in the Atlanta area that took off and did really well. Uh, so, well that it actually was dependent upon by the schools, uh, because our uptime was, was, was better than their, so we a lot of success doing that.

Kevin Johnson: And from there I just pivoted a few times, um, started off as a website and Internet consulting company, then got into the print publishing world. I’m launching a magazine using that same audience I served with the website and then in 2008 when the market crash and no one wanted to buy advertising, we pivoted again. So instead of creating publications, we asked a lot of our clients, can we create the advertising, can we create the print ad, can we create the mobile app for you? And they said, go for it. And that’s where we pivoted into what we are today, which is a full service award winning marketing and communications firm. So that’s my story in short and it’s been a wonderful, awesome, exciting ride.

Mani Vaya: That’s great. And I don’t know why you say you’re not the typical entrepreneur because to me there is no typical entrepreneur and many of us who are a typical entrepreneur.

Kevin Johnson: I appreciate it. Thanks for clearing that. Clarifying,

Mani Vaya: um, so let’s, let’s talk about the book, uh, the book is like you got 100 great ideas and there people, our listeners, like a big picture, maybe a 10,000 foot overview of the book.

Kevin Johnson: Sure. So the book is semi biographical, so I use stories, war stories, some people might refer to the mass to get a point across and it’s been really effective in helping me to build my voice and it’s, I think a large part of why the book continues to do so well. The book is broken into seven different areas, a strategy, education, people, finance, marketing and sales leadership, and then finally motivation. And so in each one of those chapters, I talk about a concept that’s really important to developing your entrepreneurial mind. For example, in strategy, I talk about why you should hire a good lawyer. Um, and for example, talk about why the business plan and in my opinion is, is overrated a lot of times. Um, another concept is, you know, a bad economy is a great opportunity. So these all contribute to the strategy. Uh, education. That’s a little self explanatory. A people, you know, your business is as good as it’s people, right? Um, and also you want to surround yourself with great people and great influencers like yourself, right? Communities of like minded people to propel you forward. And so some of the concepts under the people chapter include finding the right mentor, right? Um, one of the most popular parts and one of my favorite parts of the people chapter is the part when I talk about how you should choose your spouse wisely.

Mani Vaya: Yeah,

Kevin Johnson: I get lots of feedback on that one. And um, lots of laughs and a lot of people can relate to that. Um, finance. Um, I’m a big personal finance guy and I thought it was important to include that in that chapter. Talk about why it’s so important to have different banks, right? To minimize risk and manage your own personal debt. Well, and these are all things that will affect how you finance your business. Um, and just how you are perceived by others who may want to see what your credit is like, etc. To do business, a marketing and sales. Love That section as well. Um, I talk about how you’re in sales, whether you want to be or not, for example, you know, the importance of asking the right questions and that’s a really important one for me because when I started out I didn’t know how to ask the right questions, right?

Kevin Johnson: I was asking the wrong questions and not necessarily getting the answers I needed to better serve, uh, or even close or even identify my clients, potential clients, six leadership, you know, talk about being a maverick and factor referred to this to steve, steve jobs and steve wasniak and how they were in their youth mavericks. Um, sometimes people that we may think are not going to be the most successful actually turn out to be the most successful because they were the mavericks. And then finally, chapter seven, motivation. I talk about why it’s so important to have the right motivation. And I think we’ll talk a little bit about that later and why, you know, seeking success for success’s sake is a very dangerous, motivation. So that’s the book and about a two and a haLf minutes.

Mani Vaya: And let’s dive into some of the ideas in the book because here we believe that we to make it digestible for our listeners, and I want to focus on three specific ideas. You want us to really spend some time on three specific really important ideas that are really important for entrepreneurs and not only that, I really want to get into stories. We want to get into anecdotes, your personal war stories or any stories from other people, any other inspirational stories. And one of the really important, once you pointed out early on in the book, is the idea that, you’ve got to be able to create new markets. So talk about that.

Kevin Johnson: Yeah, thIs is actually right from the beginning, right? Chapter one is concerning strategy. Uh, the first chapter is think big and the number two chapters create new markets. And I felt that was so important to address this, uh, at the beginning of the book because it, it’ll really help new entrepreneurs get going in the right direction. Um, and so I, I can’t take all the credit. I was inspired by a wonderful book that I encourage you to also buy if you haven’t bought a, bought my book and it’s called blue ocean strategy. Yeah. Yeah. it’s a gem. I mean, it really changed how I approach business, how I think about business. Um, and, and it’s changed millions of lives as, as well as subsequent additions, et cetera. Um, but let me sort of break it down and then I’ll talk about what I address in the book. But in general, the blue ocean strategy refers to a market that is a basically untapped, right?

Kevin Johnson: That doesn’t have a lot of competition in it. On the other hand, there are red oceans or conditions where businesses viciously fight against each other for a share of the marketplace. And these are really competitive marketplaces. And they read the notes. A lot of sharks, right? So you’ll, you’ll get eaten alive because there’s so much competition. And the, uh, the red oceans, ideally when starting a new business, you want to be in a blue ocean and blue oceans have significantly more profit potential. And some of the blue ocean companies, uh, are like cirque de solei, right? They sort of created this new category of that has done very well over the years, whereas a red ocean company or industry might be one where there’s fierce competition, where are commodities, right? Things that you can get very easily and there’s not much that you can do to distinguish one commodity to the other.

Kevin Johnson: Um, and so I learned this concept with the first business that I started. So in college when I created that website that I mentioned earlier, I was essentially creating a blue ocean unknowing. And it really turned out to be a great thing because there was no other competition or direct competition, uh, online. And so literally we had a tens of thousands of students using that website and it allowed us to literally reach out to companies and say, hey, we have the best method to reach the target audience that you’re trying to reach. Uh, at the time there was another publication and there were other ways to reach the market that we served. And that would have been more so a red ocean. And so learning this very early on and knowing how much profit came from being the only company in that space really set a precedent.

Kevin Johnson: And then when I came across the concept a formalized and backed up with statistics and data in blue ocean strategy, it just, it really put the icing on the cake, so to speak, such that now whenever I start a business, the first thing I ask is, are we proceeding into a blue ocean or are we proceeding into a red ocean? And if we’re proceeding into a red ocean, we may want to rethink our approach. Um, and that’s where the marketing really comes in to set yourself apart and give your self a competitive advantage. So that’s a little bit about creating a new markets in the real world. A better example may be the iphone, right? So the iphone didn’t exist when a steve jobs and apple launched the iphone. There weren’t any direct competitors for that type of device in the market. In fact, they created the whole app store around that and just created a market which, uh, which they continue to dominate in large part today. So it really is in early entrepreneurs interests to try and create things that are really unique that will, uh, be first to market and not have to deal with a lot of competition.

Mani Vaya: Yeah. And the amazing thing about it is that it doesn’t always necessarily about new technology, but it’s also about just the way you create value for the customers or you know, create value for yourself in some ways.

Kevin Johnson: Well, I love that you mentioned that because whenever we think of innovation, we often think of technology, um, and, and engineers are especially good at it, really realizing this. But, you know, innovation and technology can come through a process. innovation, right? I’m thinking or approaching a problem in a completely different way. So I love that comment because innovation I think is a lot broader than we give it credit for.

Mani Vaya: Yeah. And um, yeah, so, so this was, this is really important. This is a, is a powerful idea here. Just be aware of as we go through our journeys because as we build our businesses, even as we’re evolving our businesses, we can continue to evolve and change and be aware of the strategy. Um, and as kevin said, it’s a great book, great rate, so highly recommended. Um, let’s talk about the next big idea. I didn’t think this is. These are the one of the two early on to big ideas which is think big or in some ways you say it takes the same amount of energy to pursue a small idea as it does to pursue a big idea. Now it sounds counter intuitive. It doesn’t sound real, but unpack it for us.

Kevin Johnson: Right? And I think this particular concept has a special significance for those who are in the, in the early startup phase, right? So if you’re working a lot by yourself or you have a small team, a lot of the work that you’re putting in to create a small idea often equals the same amount of work that it would take to create a big idea. And I learned that through my personal experience. And so, especially in the consulting world, so if you’re in the services businesses and you’re either a software program or are you providing some type of service rather than a product, a lot of times the big clients require almost just as much time as little ones. And in fact, some of the little clients that you may have are not necessarily worth it. Right? I also talk in the book about how certain times a client isn’t worth having, right?

Kevin Johnson: You gotta cut your losses, um, and you have to choose your battles, choose your headaches. Um, and so early on when consulting with companies, um, I learned that I had to think big first to go after those big accounts and once we won those bigger accounts, we realized that, uh, the same amount of effort that we put in service in smaller clients or small, a smaller dollar projects. Um, you know, the comparison, there was no comparison. And from that point on, we always thought that we’re going to go after the largest projects, um, because that’s worth the, the, the effort that we put out and, and we put into it. So yeah, I mean, it is counter intuitive, but it often takes a bit of experience to learn it, um, but the great ideas that there are folks like you and me who can tell those who are starting up that It really takes a legal amount of time and, you know, the, the, another part of that concept is, you know, time is, um, we don’t have a lot of times, I’ll put It that way.

Kevin Johnson: Now, if I could go back in time and tell myself what I know now, um, I would even do things a little differently. Uh, one of my favorite studies recently came out, uh, says that after interviewing thousands of entrepreneurs that the average time for a company to reach the million dollar revenue mark is about 11 years. Right? So, and that’s, that’s the average, right? So that means some people took longer than 11 years and some people took shorter of the mark zuckerbergs of the world and et cetera. Um, but it, it has particular relevance to my situation because it took me about, uh, about that amount of time to get to the million dollar revenue mark. Um, so I always ask people, you know, what are you in this for, what’s your time horizon, you know, everyone wants to aspire to make the million dollars, but are you willing to wait 11 years, are you willing to go through the hardships, are you willing to think big and are you willing to put in the work in a smart way? And so back to the concept and how it relates to the 11 years, I think how you work is so important to how fast you get to reaching your goals, whether it’s, you know, making a million in revenues, etc. You could be on the 18 year or 20 year track, but you know, if you focus on those big ideas and managing your time efficiently, you’ll get there a lot faster.

Mani Vaya: This is great, by the way, I want to know where you found the study and if you have any links or anything that can direct our listeners and myself to it.

Kevin Johnson: Oh yeah, sure.

Mani Vaya: Alright, I’ll look for it and hopefully our listeners will find it in the show notes when I get it from Kevin.

Kevin Johnson: Well, I think it’s, um, uh, it’ll, it’ll hit hit me a little later, but I know it was featured on forbes awhile ago. Um, and um, if it comes to mind, I’ll definitely let your listeners know because I mean, it’s statistics like that that really, you know, lay it out and give people realistic expectations, right?

Mani Vaya: Yup. This is, this is, this is awesome. So it’s really important to realize that if it’s gonna, you know, if it’s going to take the time, might as well freaking dream big and go pig rather than pursue a small idea and let that take a long time.

Kevin Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was actually done. The study’s actually done by ryan westwood and he’s the ceo of outbox systems and so they, they interviewed, um, 10,000 successful entrepreneurs who had been running ventures for about a year or more. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what they came up with and with those stats. So yeah, if you think, if you google ryan westwood outbox systems and sort of the 10,000 successful entrepreneur study, you’ll be able to bring that up and see that it’s about 11 years to get that million dollar revenue mark.

Mani Vaya: Definitely google it and put in the show notes so our listeners can get ahold of her and his mom. Um, now let’s talk about the 3rd key idea. Third really big idea. I think that’s one of my favorites because I guess as an engineer and as a physicist, I loved the idea of paradoxes and of opposites. You know, quantum physics is full of paradoxes and this is one of those ideas where you say being successful is not the goal. Tell us about it.

Kevin Johnson: Wow. And the older I get and the more wisdom and knowledge I really learn, learn more about this. Um, one of my mentors who is a adherence is a gentleman named Andrew Young, ambassador young. he was actually the mayor here of atlanta. It was also a congress congressman and he was also the right hand man of Dr. Martin luther king, a really great guy. And he mentioned to me one time that you’ll find success through significance, and that’s something that really stuck with me because, you know, as we’re growing up and especially as we’re starting out, uh, in our twenties or even our teens and sometimes into our early thirties, you know, we, we imagined success being what we have, right? Or what magazIne may have covered our story or you know, what other people think of us when that’s not really what it’s about. Um, and unfortunately I think a lot of people who are aspiring to be entrepreneurs now are aspiring to be entrepreneurial because they see the results of the work and, and, and the so called success that these entrepreneurs get.

Kevin Johnson: They’re not necessarily in it for value creation or making sure that the customers are our king, so to speak. Um, and so I think there’s somewhat of a disconnect and I always try to, to dispel the myths of what the, you know, um, this, I guess unrealistic idea of being an entrepreneur is I always try to make sure that I spread that. Because ultimately what’s going to be most important to you is how you affect the world in a positive way. I think, you know, um, I recently heard an interview with scooter braun and other contemporary here out of atlanta. Scooter is, he’s an investor now with uber and uh, but most know him because he was or still is. Justin bieber’s manager.

Mani Vaya: Well, I know him because he’s the brother of Adam braun, the founder of pencils of promise. Ah, there, there, you

Kevin Johnson: see it’s a small world. So in scooter had an interview with charlie rose maybe about, I think last week. And he talked about what success is for him. And it was interesting because he mentioned that, you know, everyone has this number, a financial number, what success will be, right? Or even this possession, this car, this house. And he said, you know, if, if that were the case, he said, if I had that number and I thought I had it where I would be completely successful. Well, I’ve passed that beyond my wildest dreams. And so having gotten to that level, I didn’t feel like I had attained the level of success insignificance that I wanted. So for him and for me in many ways, it’s about um, giving back, helping those that are less fortunate, being a good husband and good father and just being an all around great contributors to society and bringing value to the market. Um, and unfortunately I think with a lot, a lot of the younger generation is just kind of just cool to be an entrepreneur and you definitely don’t want to fall into that trap, find a problem and find a great solution. A get passionate about that. Make sure it’s in line with your passions and move forward. So, uh, and not try to follow this, this crazy idea of what success is because you know, you’ll, you’ll be disappointed,

Mani Vaya: you know, as I alluded to, as soon as we started this point, you know, it is paradoxical in many ways. The idea that being successful is not the goal because when we stop trying to be successful is actually when we can really be successful. And, well, what I mean by that is when we stop trying to look at the external achievements as the measure of success, then it’s easier to find true fulfillment, true success, and to really achieve the goal that we have.

Kevin Johnson: That’s right. Yeah. I think a lot of, of what success is for an individual stems from that individual knowing themselves, right? Or those individuals knowing themselves because success for me is different for a, is different than what your success may be. It’s different than what scooters may be or, uh, you know, um, or brian chesky at airbnb, what, what have you. So success is different, but I think there is a commonality that success isn’t predicated on a or true success. Uh, being true to yourself isn’t predicated on what others think and what possessions you may have because that all can be taken away.

Mani Vaya: I think Mark zuckerberg said: “we don’t make a great product and in order to make money, we make money in order to build great products.”

Kevin Johnson: Yeah. I love that. I remember when he said that it was a few years ago and I was like, that’s, that’s the true sign of a leader and I think a mantra and an ideology that not only he believes in, but also his employees and partners can follow as well,

Mani Vaya: you know, if you consider, if you count by any standards, he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs today. So fascinating how it all works out

Kevin Johnson: and, you know, I’m glad you mentioned him because he, you know, he just set up the large foundation that’s really important to him and his wife and um, I think they set out a goal to eradicate certain illnesses by a certain date. And so I, I think for him when it’s all said and done, that will be more important than, uh, some of the things that he’s done through facebook or even some of the acquisitions. So that’s impressive to me. Uh, and shows his leadership and maturity and I think that that comes with time. But if you can understand that early as an entrepreneur and you can really, really make a change, a bigger impact earlier. And I think it’s even reflective to have the younger generation or the millennials because, you know, now we’ve got the new classification of companies, companies that want to make a profit, but they awful also want to make a change in society. And I think that’s a new definition of success.

Mani Vaya: Okay, so this is great. Now, let’s give three specific action items that they can go and apply today.

Kevin Johnson: We’ll, let’s, let’s work backwards. So let’s start with, uh, the true definition of success. Um, I think everyone has to go through the process of figuring out what that success is. So literally write down how you want to impact the world, um, as a result of starting your business or perhaps through your business. Right. Um, it’s interesting a lot of people that will seek my help for mentorship, uh, when they’re writing their goals for their business, they’ll have a goal for a specific profit, but then they’ll have a goal, a that’s based on their value system and how they want to change the world in some way. So I encourage new entrepreneurs who are setting out on this wonderful journey to literally give it some thought and write down those goals, put it in a journal and revisit those, those goals of how you want to change the world and what success is.

Kevin Johnson: If you don’t write it down, it doesn’t exist. Yeah. So, and the second, let me see. I want to jump to the marketing because I’m a marketing guy, so we’ll, we’ll go back to the first one and creating new markets to, for these two action items. And even though it’s it, this is about me and the, the entrepreneur mind, definitely follow up on that blue ocean strategy by that book. Dissect it and use the concepts there to look at your own business, right? See if you are in a red ocean or sea, if you are in a blue ocean, and take the right steps accordingly. So first of all, you know, determine what type of ocean you’re in a, if you’re in a red ocean, you’ve got some marketing work to do. Really try and find what your competitive advantages, what you can do to market yourself or your company, your product differently to stand out because ultimately that’s what’s gonna bring you ultimate success. Of course you would get that from a marketing guy. So yeah, yeah, I mean that, that marketing piece is, is so, so important. Uh, and the third I’m trying to recall

Mani Vaya: It takes the same amount of energy to pursue a small idea as it does to pursue a big idea.

Kevin Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. So the first step that’s somewhat related is, you know, it’s hard because there’s a prerequisite for this. You have to think big, right? So if you’ve got small ideas and small projects, you know, I encourage you to overcome that fear of going after something big for years. Um, it, we chased small contracts, especially when we changed to a service oriented company and those small contracts will drive you crazy. Right? So a, think big and go after those big, big contracts. Um, so that you’ll be efficiently using your energy and you’ll be more profitable.

Mani Vaya: How about we quantify it by saying you go for contracts that are 10 x bigger?

Kevin Johnson: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s, that’s great. I mean, for us what I did was I went to my mentor or advocate and I said, hey, show me what a winning proposal for $40 million dollar contract looks like. Um, and I was literally blown away by what that looks like because I’m very visual and my team, we feel that we can do anything. It’s just, we would love to see what it looks like, um, to do that. So we saw proposal and we said we can do that, we definitely can do that. um, and so yeah, once you get that confidence and you find out what it’s gonna take to get there, go after it completely. Don’t, don’t do anything small and it’s easier said than done. I’m, I must admit that, and it’s gonna hurt in the short term, but in the long term, long term, you’ll be so much more thankful.

Mani Vaya: Yeah. And it seems like part of that action item, that advice you’re given is also to go hang with giants, go find people who are thinking way bigger than you are because they will change that for you.

Kevin Johnson: Oh yeah, that’s right. And you know, I heard someone describe it recently that we’re scared of, of wild success, right? Or large a windfalls. Right. Is, is, you know, it seems like everybody wants it, but you know, it’s, it’s kind of scary with when you win that, that huge contract, you’re like, oh, I did this, now I have to actually follow through with it. Right. And service this contract or create these widgets that were ordered through or whatever platform. So you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all a part of the entrepreneurial maturation process  and it’s worth going after the big ideas.

Mani Vaya: Absolutely. Well this has been great, kevin, a lot of learning, lot of great ideas. So tell our listeners how to get hold of you and where to find the book and everything else.

Kevin Johnson: Sure, yeah. The best way to reach out to me is through the books website. You can visit www . the entrepreneur mind .com and if you like me still have trouble spelling entrepreneur, you can just pop it in to the google, google will get you there and you can find me on twitter at biz whiz Kevin. And um, my email is kevin@johnsonmedia.com. Would love to hear from you all and uh, don’t mind interacting and helping people whenever I can.

Mani Vaya: Boom. That’s awesome. Well, thank you kevin.

Kevin Johnson: Oh you, you are definitely welcome man. I appreciate everything that you do. Uh, and if there’s anything I can do to Support you, I definitely will do it.

Mani Vaya: Thank you. Thank you very much. Of course, all the linkS from the show today will be on the show notes page there. You can also download the summary and action guide off the book, so just head on over to 2000books.com and you will find everything right there.

 

 

The Entrepreneur Mind Big Ideas

Create New Markets

  1. Blue Ocean Strategy
    • Find Untapped market
    • They have significantly higher profit potential
      • Example: Cirque du Soleil compared to regular Circus.
    • You can create value in different ways. Innovation can happen in various ways
      • Technology
      • Process
      • Value chain
  2. Red Ocean
    • Is where everyone is competing for the existing market

Think BIGGER

  1. It takes the same amount of energy to pursue a small idea as it does to pursue a big idea

Being successful is not the goal

  1. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be successful, but it is the wrong reason to start a business.
  2. If your goal is to create value and change lives, you have a much higher likelihood of success.
  3. Success comes through significance – how we affect the world
  4. “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value” – Einstein

The Entrepreneur Mind summary PDF

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